
Dickason Professor in the Humanities Professor of Classics and History Catherine R. Kennedy and Daniel L. Grossman Fellow in Human Biology Walter Scheidel is the Dickason Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Classics and History, and a Kennedy-Grossman Fellow in Human Biology at Stanford University. The author or editor of sixteen previous books, he has published widely on premodern social and economic history, demography, and comparative history. He lives in Palo Alto, California. Scheidel's research ranges from ancient social and economic history and premodern historical demography to the comparative and transdisciplinary world history of inequality, state formation, and human welfare. He is particularly interested in connecting the humanities, the social sciences, and the life sciences.

The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity
2019

Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires
2008

2014

2002

2012

2007

Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century
2017

Biology, Climate, and the Future of the Past
2018

2025